School employees fight for jobs after background checks reveal criminal history

UPDATED 7:53 PM EST Nov 08, 2012

PITTSBURGH -

At a community center in Penn Hills, Art Johnson helps young fathers learn how to be men.

“I'm not coming at them with what I found out in a book. I'm sharing my experience, my strengths and my hopes with them,” he told Channel 4 Action News’ Paul Van Osdol.

Those experiences he shares come from time he spent in prison while serving a five-year sentence in the 1980s.

A jury convicted Johnson of voluntary manslaughter after police said he shot and killed 23-year-old Donna Jean Dunbar at a North Side row house on Christmas Day 1982.

When asked about that day, Johnson told Van Osdol there was “tussling with a pistol and it went off.”

“I kind of tried to live the street life, and in the process, I ended up taking someone's life,” he said.

After he got out of prison and off parole, Johnson went to work for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit as a van driver, and later as a counselor.

He was able to get a job there due to an old law allowing people with criminal records to work in schools after five years.

During the past decade, Johnson has worked with hundreds of young fathers.

“He is an outstanding employee,” Allegheny Intermediate Unit Executive Director Linda Hippert told Van Osdol. “This is an example of a person who is a wonderful employee, who has a track record and has helped many, many others along the way.”

In January, state officials told Johnson’s boss she had to fire him because of a new state law mandating lifetime employment bans for certain criminal offenses.

“I felt betrayed,” Johnson told Van Osdol. “It made me feel like I'm never going to get ahead, and what I did, I'm never going to be forgiven for.”

In February, a judge ruled that Johnson can keep his job, but the state Department of Education has appealed that decision.

Others fighting the new law include a Mercer County school bus driver convicted of selling drugs in 1986, a Harrisburg teacher who was 20 years old when convicted of corruption of minors in 1993 and a York janitor convicted of aggravated assault in 1994.

Van Osdol found 53 people working in schools have been reported to the state after background checks turned up crimes covered under the new law.

“Do you want a murderer with your children or a rapist with your children? You do not,” said state Sen. Kim Ward, who cosponsored the background check law.

Van Osdol asked Ward if someone like Johnson, who has had a clean record for three decades, should be punished.

“I believe that gentleman needs to go get that fixed, legally, with an expungement off his record,” she said.

But under Pennsylvania law, Johnson or anyone else convicted of a crime cannot get their record expunged until they turn 70.

Van Osdol asked parents how they would feel if their child’s teacher had been convicted of a serious felony more than two decades ago.

“I'm thinking, like a grand theft, something like that, if they were 18 years old and stole a car, I'd be OK with that. Killing is a whole other level,” said parent Taryn Boyd.

“If it had absolutely nothing to do with the safety of children and it doesn't affect their job, then I'd be willing to give somebody a second chance,” said parent Kara Monocello.

A lawyer for area school districts said Johnson and other fired employees stand a good chance of getting their jobs back.

“You're basically punishing someone for something that was not contrary to law when they were hired,” said attorney Ira Weiss. “There's something not right about that.”

Johnson certainly feels that way, but all he can do is wait until the courts decide his fate.

“In one sense, I understand they're trying to protect the children, and in another sense, I feel you're just throwing people away,” he said.

Some local school districts have held off firing employees with criminal records until the courts rule on his and other cases.

One thing did not change with the new law is anyone convicted of a felony involving children cannot work in a school.

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